Bases Loaded with One on Deck

Old World Wisconsin

Today we headed to the town of Eagle where we were able to met up with some new friends, and step back in time to see what life was like for the fine folks of Wisconsin back in the late 19th century.

"A Big House, in the Little Woods"

                     

"A Little House Not on the Prairie"

                      

A crooked house (or a crooked camera man, take your pick)

                      

Col. Mustard's House 

                                     

Dinner

                       

Road kill (sorry live one wouldn't stay still)

                        

Children of the uncoordinated kind

                          

(uncoordinated child in background)

                          

a slightly more coordinated child

                          

and the only picture we managed to snap of Catherine all day, which is technically of James.

                        

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Handle Snakes

We had the pleasure of attending a "Snakes of Georgia" presentation at a friends house today.  The boys and I, along with several other homeschooling families got to see a sampling of snakes (venomous and non venomous) native to our area.  It was extremely informative, and we all certainly learned a lot, but I must admit the parts that I found the most interesting had nothing to do with our Georgia serpents.

First, the presenter and snake handler was named Patrick Ireland.  I kid you not!  This is his real name.  (If you fail to see the irony in this you need to read up on this guy.)  

One of the first things Patrick Ireland shared with us was his knowledge of certain television shows.  Shows that because I have four boys, I am very familiar with and have most likely seen every episode.  Ever watch "Crocodile Hunter" or "Jeff Corwin"?  Ever get nervous watching those shows, cause you just know one of these times their luck is going to run out and they're going to get bit?   If so, you worried in vain, because it's all pretty much fake!  The live snakes are most likely from their own personal collection, not from deep in the jungles of Borneo.  And the snakes that Steve Irwin would rush up and grab by the tail, were mostly likely dead snakes that had been frozen, then thawed for the shoot.   I guess it all makes sense.  The crews for those shows must be huge, and it would probably be a most cumbersome and time consuming task following Jeff and Steve through the Amazon looking for that perfect specimen, much easier to bring your own and stage it!  Patrick also explained that most snakes found in the wild aren't as "attractive" as the snakes raised in captivity, since they are not as well feed and can often be scared from encounters with other animals in the wild.  

This lead to the discussion of who gets bit more; men or women?  And where do people get bit most often; near home or in the wild?  The answer: Men, who find a venomous snake on their property and instead of calling in a professional they either try to kill the snake themselves, or imitate what they've seen on "Animal Planet".  Many times there is alcohol involved.   I certainly believed this because after hearing this bit of information, I immediately thought that it was a good thing these shows didn't exist when my dad was in college, who after drinking a bit to much with his fraternity brothers, decided to imitate what he saw on one of his favorite shows.  In this instance it was an ax being thrown into a tree.  In the show the ax would embed itself into the trunk of the tree and stay there.  In real life, it bounced off the trunk of the tree and back into my dad's foot. 

To sum it all up this is what we learned today:

• Copperheads are the only venomous snake that we would possibly see slithering around our house.
• Non-venomous snakes are good!  They eat venomous snakes.
• Hollywood is a magical place, and not everything you see is real, so please, don't try this at home!

              

This Week

1. We got a call for a rare showing of the house.  Even rarer was that the showing was on a weekday.  The boys and I got the house completely ready, and still managed to get some school done.  Don't think the people were interested, but it was very nice to have the house all spic and span during a weekday, even if it was just for an hour or two.
2. Managed to add some geography back into our school days.  We decided that even though we can't live in Wisconsin right now, there's no reason why we can't explore it.  We are using "B is for Badger" .  I've printed out a few of the sheets from the lesson plans  offered by Sleeping Bear Press.  I love this series of books, so far we have 6, one for each of the states the kids were born in and Wisconsin.  I've made up a few plans of my own as well.  For sure our next artist study will be Georgia O'Keefe, and with John being "our future architect" we certainly need to learn more about Frank Lloyd Wright (both native cheeseheads).  
3. Made pretzels for the boys for lunch.  This is one of their favorite things, and I haven't supplied them with any since having Catherine.  I make these every Friday during lent, so they are about to get their fill!

I know I'm a bit late getting these posted, but don't forget to stop by "Faith and Family"  to see what everyone else has been up to this week, and to share what you've been doing! 

It's the Little Things That Mean A Lot

Life for our family has been a tad bit insane over these past few months, we've had a lot of big changes in a short amount of time and it's thrown everything around us a bit off kilter.  I have not made a lesson plan since August, I can't remember the last time I made a nice meal, and grocery shopping seems to take place when one of the boys announces we are out of milk and I manage to pick up a few things along with the milk that could tie us over for a few days. 

The simple little things, that used to be so easy to take of, and required very little thought or preparation, are now major accomplishments that take careful thought and planning. 

These past few weeks I've felt that life is getting a bit easier to manage, and I'm getting closer to establishing some sort of workable rhythm for our days.  But let's face it, these past few months every little bit of progress and every little task accomplished is a triumph, so when I read this over at "Faith & Family" a few weeks ago, I knew I would be joining in. 

Right now I feel like I am the "Small Success" queen.  It is was keeps me sane and keeps me going, and these are the three I am going to share this week:

1. This post.  I've wanted to do this for the past two weeks, but it just never happened.  Today I got it done.

2. I have worked out every day this week so far.  It wasn't long (20 minutes of pilates or 1 mile of this DVD ) and it may have to take place at 10 o'clock at night since Catherine isn't very consistant about when she awakes in the morning yet, but it's 20 minutes more a day than I have been getting!

3. I started a new read aloud with the boys, which we are all very excited about.  And I actually managed to line my library book shelf with many wonderful selections that are recommended for February in this little gem.  These books will go a long way in helping to make school a little more interesting again, especially for John and James.  We might not get to every book, but we've read 3 so far, and Michael and Matthew have volunteered to do some of the reading, so I'm sure we'll get to most of them.

That's all for now.  May your week be filled with many successes, big or small.  Thanks for taking the time to share in mine.

 

Food, Feet, and First Lego League

   

   

 

 

It may come as a surprise to some of you that we have been involved in other activities besides taking pictures of Catherine.  In fact one of the things that has occupied much of our time over the past 7 or 8 months has been Michael and Matthew's involvement in First Lego League (FLL).  This past Saturday they competed in the state competition that was held at Georgia Tech.  They did not place in any of the events, but to make it to State you had to get through qualifiers (where they placed 1st for research and 2nd overall), and regionals.   So the fact that they made it to State as a rookie team is a huge accomplishment in itself.  Their team was called the "Lego Crusaders" and they did an absolutely amazing job!  Way to go guys!

I have to add some personal feelings on this whole experience.  When the boys were asked to join this team we had no idea that Kent would be looking into the job in Milwaukee, let alone accepting it, but they let Michael and Matthew remain on the team even though they might not be able to finish out the year.  Then when I had Catherine and it turned out Kent wasn't going to be here as much as we had hoped, and Catherine kept having doctors appointments and I couldn't always keep up with the practice schedule or help the boys keep up with their work and research, they still allowed the boys to remain on the team.  The other families we were involved with picked up the boys for practice, took them on the field trips, took them to and from tournaments, sat down and helped them with their work so that they could catch up.  They did EVERYTHING for me when I could do nothing because our life circumstances at the time.  These families gave my boys an experience of a lifetime.  Priya, Marjorie, and Debbie, I can't thank you or your families enough for the wonderful gift you have given us.  You are an amazing group of women and you have blessed our lives more than you will ever know.  THANK YOU!

Hours of Fun!

The Book:

The Builders:

The Hanger:

The Pilots:

The Testing Field:

The Crash Site:

Burn Out

Well the most wonderful time of the year is nearly over.  Epiphany is this Sunday and the boys will receive the last of their presents.  Christmas boxes will be pulled up from the basement so they can be refilled with all the beautiful decorations adorning our home and stored away for the next 11 months.  Diets will get back to normal and so will sleeping times.  I will go to bed that night a bit sad, yet ready to get back to regular, ordinary, everyday life.  Which is a good thing when you consider the fact that when the boys and I wake up Monday morning we'll be facing a full day of home school! 

Oh, the moans and groans of the boys.  The dragging the feet down the stairs to the breakfast table where they will sit and eat their bowl of cereal as if it is their last meal.  "Couldn't you have at least made us some bacon before sending us to our doom?!"  is what Michael will ask.   They will gloomily put their bowls and spoons in the sink and march upstairs again to get ready for the day.  "Brush your teeth, wash your face, make up your beds!" I will command.  They will obey and then the "dead men walking" will head back downstairs to the school room to await their fate, which will be carefully written out and planned by me this weekend.

The first few weeks will actually go by fairly smoothly, then February will hit.  The days will still be short, the weather will still be cold, and there will be almost 2 looooooong months to go before the Holy Week break.  School will not even be the least bit fun, and after a miserable day of school we'll get to go freeze our tushies off at baseball practice.  Day after day we'll just trudge along going through the motions, and before we know know it a serious case of burn out has set in!

Now to be completely honest, over the past 7 years I have hit varying degrees of burn out, the first half of this year being the absolute worst, and I am actually for once, truly looking forward to this next half of the year.  I've done a lot of reflecting, a TON of praying and have really started to make some subtle but positive changes that will really benefit our family and our homeschooling.   Finding out I'm pregnant has given me extra motivation.  The boys are even fully willing to work through the summer knowing I am due at the end of August and will need to take a break once the baby comes.  But for most of us who do home school this truly is the time of year when burn out does set it in, so I wanted to share a series of posts  that Elizabeth Foss did last year addressing this very subject.  I hope you enjoy them and they will be of some use to you. 

As for the boys, don't worry about them, they will actually be fine come Monday morning, where they will be greeted by a big plate of bacon to accompany whatever else they might choose for breakfast that morning.  If I'm still feeling as good as I do now, they might get to choose pancakes!

we had them eating out of our hands

Apparently my kids have hit some sort of homeschool field trip/party jackpot. Last week it was Etowah Indian Mounds and the All Saints Party, today it was Carlton Farms, park day is tomorrow and there's a birthday party on Saturday.  Needless to say, they think it's great.   

This was the second time we got to visit Carlton Farms.  They offer homeschool days that includes a hayride, petting zoo and corn maze.

On the hayride they take you around the farm and out to pasture to see the cows.  You can feed the cows hay from the cart and if they are hungry they'll come up and take some.  Last year not a one was biting.  This year it was quite a different story.

    

      

(Burke, I'm sure you'll have no problem spotting Matthew in these pictures!)

No pictures of the petting zoo, I guess we were all too enthralled with the 5 new baby calves they had.  They looked just like the ones we were feeding in the above pictures, only smaller and cuter.

The corn maze has a different design every year.  You have to go through and find the 12 different stations.  Each station has a different shaped hole punch, and if you get all of them you get a prize.  We found everything but the exit and had to wind our way back to the entrance.  That's what you get for letting the adults lead, kids have much more common sense when it comes to these things.

   

It's a dairy farm so they sell raw milk there labeled for "pet consumption" only, since it's illegal in Georgia to sell it for human consumption.  They also have chickens so you can get eggs and free range chicken meat there as well, and turkeys for Thanksgiving.  The eggs are very hard to come by, they sell quick, but I did manage to score me a dozen this morning.  I have a sensitivity to store bought eggs, so I'm hoping these will be easier on me.  I hard boiled one for a snack when I got home, so far so good.  They have drop off points around Atlanta, so these are something I could easily get on a regular basis.  I love eggs and would be thrilled if I could eat them again once or twice a week for breakfast.

Hopefully we'll be making this an annual event.  Maybe one year we can even get Kent to come along.  It really is one of the boys favorite things to do.  The drive up to North Georgia is just beautiful this time of year!  Lots of rolling hills covered in autumn.  And there's just something so enchanting about life on a farm out in the country.  On the way home we always discuss how we could manage to get our hands on one.  I'm sure Kent would be more than willing to trade a suit and tie for some overalls.

Autumn Treehouse

Keeping with our theme of fall, this is our "deceptive" picture study for the day.  This is "Tree House in Autumn" by Rob Gonsalves. 

We Did it for Johnny!

So can you plan a whole day of school around Johnny Appleseed Day? 

Well..........

For Math you could work with fractions, time, and temperatures and end up with Apple Strudel Muffins.

In Geography you could see the world.

Brother Bartholomew could teach religion class.

Arts and Crafts could always use a little help from Martha.

In Science you could start your very own Apple Pie Tree.

For History why not read about the man himself.

Give the kids a day of from Latin, Spelling and English (although it would certainly be easy to include those if you wanted to) and I believe you certainly could!

*And just a note, some of these were planned for when Dad got home, but John's coach called a practice for tonight, so we didn't quite get to do everything, but all will be done by the weekend!  Certainly can't leave them out of  the fun!